According to the South Korean ministry of unification, the meeting began at 10:00 local time (04:00 Moscow time) in the border town of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone.

"We will hold close consultations with North Korea’s representatives to see to it that the summit is successful," Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon, who leads the South Korean delegation, said before the beginning of the talks. The delegation also includes his deputy Chun Hae-sung and South Korean president’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan.

On March 24, North Korea accepted South Korea’s invitations for high-level talks to agree a date and venue for an intra-Korean summit due in April. Pyongyang revealed its plans to send a delegation of three members that would be led by chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland Ri Son-gwon.

Chung Eui-yong, director of the National Security Office for the South Korean President, and director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service Suh Hoon visited Pyongyang on March 5-6. They had four-hour talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The visit yielded an agreement on a meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas in late April. Following the visit, Pyongyang announced its readiness to launch direct talks on normalizing relations with the United States to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.